The treasure vault wasn't large.
It covered only about a hundred square meters.
But inside the vault were countless wooden shelves, which looked like they had been made from parts of the Bloodsucking Vine. The entire secret room was surrounded by the Bloodsucking Vine's roots and stems, though by now the Bloodsucking Vine had completely withered.
So all Ethan saw was a secret room built from withered vines.
Around the secret room were more than a dozen mermaid statues kneeling on the ground.
Each held an oil lamp in its hands.
[Mermaid Oil Lamp: Because mermaid oil can be refined into fish oil that burns for a hundred years, using it to light a secret room together with an air element wick allows the lamps to light automatically when the secret room is opened and extinguish automatically when it is closed.]
[P.S.: There are many fake mermaid oils on the market made by breaking humans' legs, sewing on fish tails, and rendering them into oil on the spot. Be careful to tell them apart.]
'An air element wick?'
It was probably referring to an oxygen element wick. As soon as it detected oxygen, it would ignite on its own. Without oxygen, it would automatically go out.
And a secret room like this wasn't very large.
Once the door was shut, the oxygen would soon be used up, so naturally the lamps would go out.
Then when someone opened the door again, fresh oxygen would enter. Once the air element wick detected oxygen again, it would reignite.
'Interesting!'
'This can probably be considered using scientific knowledge on top of magic, right?'
Ethan had originally thought that magic and science were mutually exclusive, but now it seemed they actually had many things in common. Perhaps he could also use some scientific principles to make better use of magic.
As the mermaid oil lamps lit up, the rows of shelves in the secret room were illuminated as well.
The most eye-catching... were the treasure chests on the floor with their lids open.
Some of the chests were filled with spirit stones, some were filled with beast cores of every element, and besides those, there were countless chests of precious metals.
Such as gold, platinum, and so on.
Ethan roughly counted them. There were about three chests of spirit stones, two chests of beast cores of various elements, four chests of precious metals such as gold and platinum, and six chests of dragon coins.
But these were obviously not the most valuable things in the treasure vault, since they were simply piled on the floor.
Still, every chest had its lid open, showing just how much the Goblin King loved looking at its wealth.
But now... it all belonged to Ethan.
"Collect!"
[Spirit Stones +15,690]
[Wind Beast Cores +7,431]
[Water Beast Cores +3,624]
[Fire Beast Cores +1,787]
[Metal Beast Cores +2,564]
[Wood Beast Cores +3,765]
[Earth Beast Cores +3,210]
[Gold +2,303]
[Platinum +1,391]
[Black Gold +548]
[Enchanted Ore +1,321]
[Advanced Wood +2,319]
[Advanced Stone +3,904]
The string of notifications made the corners of Ethan's mouth stretch all the way to his ears.
'So satisfying!'
In one sweep, he had collected the accumulation of an entire kingdom.
And these were only the least valuable things in the treasure vault.
Besides those, Ethan casually began collecting the items from the shelves throughout the treasure vault.
[Multi-Eyed Monster Eyeballs +999]
[Life Spring Crystals +2,981]
[Purple-Hat +9]
[Blue Hat +120]
[Orange Hat +320]
[Black Gold Goblin Blades +175]
[...]
Pile after pile of items all went into Ethan's Tail Ring.
Fortunately, he had a ring that could hold countless items. Otherwise, a mere Advanced Backpack wouldn't have been able to hold so many good things.
But although all of these were good, none of them reached the level of making Ethan's eyes light up.
Until... he walked behind the last row of shelves.
A small area had been left empty there, and in the middle of that small space stood a small platform.
Several items had been placed on top of it.
Needless to say... these had to be the things the Goblin King considered most important.
They had all been placed separately, and the red line from the Prophetic Statue in Ethan's hand pointed directly toward one corner of the platform, where an unremarkable white stone block sat.
It was... the base of the Prophetic Statue.
"Found it!"
Ethan was delighted. Just as he was about to step forward to take the treasure, he noticed a red exclamation mark appear above the platform. He immediately stopped.
[Spatial Barrier. Unless you present the token for the Spatial Barrier, anyone entering without authorization will be cut apart by space.]
"Holy crap! That's cautious!"
Ethan really had to hand it to the Goblin King.
Building the secret room inside the Bloodsucking Vine's roots and stems was one thing, but it had even put a separate safe inside the secret room to lock away this pile of treasures?
Ethan naturally didn't have the token for the Spatial Barrier.
But...
That wasn't enough to stump him.
"Level 3 - Space Gate!"
Whoosh!
The next second, a black hole the size of a plate appeared inside the barrier.
Ethan then reached his hand through it and grabbed the base of the Prophetic Statue in one go. This was the target of his trip, so naturally he had to take it first.